The Way Sophia Plays

Ok... so I have been trying for DAYS to get this video of Sophia to upload! It's about 2 minutes long and apparently blogger just can't deal with that much video. I finally decided to upload the video on my Youtube account (which took about 2 minutes!) and post the link here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OptVpnHO2I

And here is a little text about the video... happy viewing!

I've been wanting to record the way Sophia plays for some time, and I was finally able to sneak a recording of her without her noticing! Sophia happily plays by herself quite often. I think it's interesting that she narrates and provides dialogue for characters, like she's telling a story. This also fascinates me because I can remember constantly "narrating" or telling myself stories out loud as a child. I still do this in my mind! I might hear a car alarm, for example, and I reflexively come up with a plot in my mind and find myself narrating the plot (briefly). I don't know how common that is... I don't think I've mentioned this to many people! Whether or not it's common to narrate and make up stories, it's so incredible to watch Sophia do this without having been taught to, in the same way that I used to! How did she learn this? So interesting!

"Sophia-isms"

"When I grow up I'm going to be a kindergartener!"

"I fell in love with that boy" (playground romance!).

"My foot died!" (Sometimes she "gets stuck" in a passe during ballet practice!).

Sophia: "I wish we had a minivan."
Me: "We don't need a minivan; minivans are for huge familes."
Sophia: "But you're huge!"

Sophia: "Are we going to the liquore store?"
Me: "Why would we be going there?"
Sophia: "To get daddy beer. Daddy loves beer!" (Not true; I'm the one who loves beer!)

"I would like some pizza. We can get pizza, right? There's a place called Papa John's that's open, right?" (This is after throwing up several times in the wee hours of the morning).

"I just took a tiny, standard bite."

"I'm doing a good job," "I'm doing it right," and other phrases to confirm that she's little Ms Perfect! She's exhibiting some of her mom's OCD and competitiveness!

More Mural Progress!

Sophia was clipping nails tonight :)
And, more progress on the wall mural! One more mare and a foal to go, and then we'll start painting the landscape in! This is tedious, but it's also really nice to paint again. I haven't been in touch with my "inner painter" since I left VT six years ago! I did use a projector to pencil in the images, but the painting I have to figure out myself from the photos, which is a very fun challenge! We're getting there!

Party time!

Last Saturday was packed! We had the morning ballet lessons, and then Sophia's first classmate birthday party, and then headed up to Grand Forks for Grandma Mary's 90th birthday party! Sophia's classmate, Elly, had her party at a local children's museum, and the kids had LOTS of fun there!

Enjoying the museum's interactive exhibits...

A quick nap in the car, and Sophia was ready for her next party!

The world's best birthday girl!

Cousins performance!

Of course the party continued well into the night back at Carmen and Ralph's!

Ava helping her Grandpa Ralph with his cards! ;)

The next morning Sophia insisted on the usual diva outfit, and then helped her cousins Gunner and DJ make carmel rolls for Grandma's birthday breakfast!

Cuddling on the way to breakfast!

Sophia with her great grandma! So, so special :)

Sophia LOVES babies, especially Ava!

On Veterans Day Sophia's Godfather, Brandon, paid a surprise visit and we roped him into babysitting while Travis and I went to our first parent-teacher conference, which was FUN! We took Brandon out to lunch to thank him and managed to sneak in a few photos of Sophia with her Godfather Brandon!

I know these are hard to see, but this was phase 1 of Sophia's "room redo!" We are doing a wall mural of horses in fields, and started by sketching in the outlines and some shading from projected photographs. Here are the sketches!

We're slowly getting there! Acrylic paint is difficult, but I'm getting the hang of it!

Tummy face! The joys of washable markers! :)

Ballet Videos!

So my sister in law, Sammy, recently said, "I can't wait to see some ballet videos on the blog" and I wondered why I hadn't thought of that sooner! Here are a couple short videos that I took at Sophia's lesson today!

One more Halloween Pic!

On Halloween day Travis and I both volunteered in Sophia's classroom during her Halloween party! It was so fun; we helped the children get into their costumes and then enjoyed a "concert" of Halloween songs! We had a great time post-concert with helping children do Halloween crafts and admiring the clever Halloween snacks... It was such a treat for us all to enjoy this fun party together, and to spend some extra time at Sophia's school.

Happy Halloween!!!

We've done LOTS of playing in the leaves lately!
Sophia's wonderful new rake from the "small hands" Montessori supply catalogue! Small Hands has lots of awesome, "real" tools for children to use... she also got a chopping knife that works really well, and is one of her favorite things to use!

Posing with our "silly" jack 'o lanterns...

Halloween night! Leslie and her daughter, Aria, joined us for trick or treating in our neighborhood... one of the wonderful things (and yes, there are wonderful things!) about living in a suburb: safe and fun trick or treating among many neighborhood children! On SIDEWALKS!

The girls have so much fun together! Aria is a hoot!

One of the most beautiful, warm Halloweens. Ever.

Trying out one of her treats...

Waiting to shout those magic words!

SUPER scary decorations at this one house! Might have been rated a bit PG13ish for our little girls... they didn't know what to think! I mean, there was a LOT of blood!

Not feelin the PG13 place...

Ok, so LOTS of the families out trick-or-treating were the ENTIRE family: mom, dad, gaggle of kids AND the dressed up family dog! I couldn't BELIEVE how many dogs in costume were out!

After a good hour we returned to my place and Leslie and I chilled with glasses of red wine while the girls went through (and consumed!) their loot. It was a pretty awesome, mellow, fun, perfect Halloween! Considering Travis had to work, Halloween was on a Monday, and we missed out on the epic cousin festivities, I was pretty happy :) HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!